State of the City 2014

STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS BY MAYOR STROMBERG
City Administrator Dave Kanner provided the first part of the State of the City address and shared the following.

Ashland City government means:

that when you turn on the tap, clean water comes out;

when you flush the toilet, your waste is carried away to be treated properly;

your car does not break axles in potholes;

when you flip the switch, the electricity comes on;

police keep a watchful eye on the City and respond if you are the victim of a crime;

firefighters who are trained emergency medical technicians respond every day to people in crisis; and

our parks and trails provide free, world-class enjoyment.

These things do not happen by magic. They happen by virtue of the hard day-to-day work of 250 City of Ashland employees, who, through their dedication and diligence, provide the services that create the foundation for the extraordinary quality of life we enjoy in Ashland. Our last citizen satisfaction survey, presented to you roughly a year ago, found that 89% of respondents rated our employees good or excellent for responsiveness, 87% good or excellent for job knowledge and 86% good or excellent for courtesy, numbers that are much above national benchmarks and comparator communities. Those are numbers we hope to build on in the year ahead as we roll out a new program of customer service standards for City employees aimed at maintaining and improving those numbers.

The staff’s work program is rooted in the goals and objectives adopted by the City Council and the Parks Commission. Those goals are:

Public safety and other city agencies, along with the community, collaborate effectively to ensure security for all and improve overall livability.

Collaborate with the community to ensure safe, cost-effective, and sustainable public services, facilities, and utilities to meet the urgent, immediate, and future needs of Ashland.

Anticipate and identify opportunities to provide for the physical, social, economic, and environmental health of the community.

Provide high quality and effective delivery of the full spectrum of city service and governance in a transparent, accessible, and fiscally responsible manner.

Maintain and expand park, recreational, and educational opportunities; provide high quality, efficient and safe services with positive experiences for guests, and other participants while maintaining community participation in the decision-making processes and protecting the environment.

And so, among other things, our 25 sworn police officers patrolled the 6.6 square miles of the City, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our 26 firefighters respond to more than 3,300 calls for service annually, our Public Works crews maintain 101 miles of streets, 93 miles of storm sewers and 130 miles of water lines and 110 miles of sewer lines. We treated more than one billion gallons of potable water and 738 million gallons of sewage. We swept 3,200 cubic yards of debris off City streets and painted more than 340,000 feet of centerlines, fog lines, curbs, and crosswalks. Our Electric Crews maintain 12,000 service connections, 1,800 streetlights, 2,000 electrical transformers and 3,500 poles and our utility billing office processed more than 125,000 utility bills. The Community Development Department processed over 1,100 building permits and more than 400 planning or zoning actions in addition to handling 21,000 phone calls.

The Parks Department maintains 642 acres of parks and 26 miles of trails. On top of all of this day-to-day work, 2013 was a very productive year for the City of Ashland:

Reconstructed and dedicated our new plaza in downtown Ashland. At the same time, we refurbished and re-planted the planter boxes downtown.

The City took several important steps toward helping the most vulnerable members of our community; establishing a weekly winter shelter in a City building – now a twice-weekly shelter – and providing a $100,000 grant to ACCESS and OHRA to create a help center for those in need, including the homeless.

Citizen survey

Council goals

Transportation Systems Plan

Major Progress on the Ashland Forest Resiliency Project

Completed an affiliation agreement between Asante and Ashland Community Hospital

Parks Dept. reconstructed the Enders shelter and built the cover on the ice rink.

In the interest of time, I have only scratched the surface of what your City government provides every day and what we accomplished in 2013. I know I speak for all City employees when I say it is an honor and a privilege to serve the citizens of Ashland and we look forward to an even more productive year in 2014.

Mayor Stromberg shared the following values and reasons he ran for Mayor:

Making democracy work

Decisions based on sustainability

The amateur Directors – people elected without experience running a municipality

The City was addressing the following projects:

AFR Funding

Fire Adapted Community

Ashland Community Hospital transition to Asante

The new Housing and Human Services Commission and their task of conducting the Social Service Grant study as well as a survey of needs and available resources in Ashland

Winter Shelter facilities partnered by the City and two congregations

Road Diet Experiment/Wimer-Hersey realignment

Downtown Parking and Multi-modal Circulation Committee

Help Center

The Planning Portfolio: Unified Land Use Ordinance; Normal Avenue Neighborhood; Croman Mill site